Isreali PM Netanyahu formally calls for President Obama to release of Israeli spy Johnathan Pollard

[The Brave Little Toaster Oven]

Great, then why don't we stop giving them so much aid each year if they can handle themselves? Hell, we need to fix our debt issue, don't we? I don't know how much we give them; amounts vary depending on what web site you look at. One site said about 7 million per day, which is over 2.5 billion dollars per year.

And let's be honest, if the word got out that we were no longer supporting Israel, that we would give them no money, no weapons, nothing, don't you think Hamas and the other groups would be salivating?

I'm big on the 'go **** yourself, Israel' bandwagon....we give them far too much stuff to be treated the way we are in return. Its nice to have an ally in the Middle East, but please...I'm sure we could probably build up another relationship with a country that wont **** on the hand that feeds them.

Israel can handle themselves fine without us...they have plenty of scientists researching top technologies. They dont want our services whenever we sell them something in the FMS market, they just want the product (missiles, aircraft, ships, etc). If they arent buying from us, they'd go buy from the Russians or Chinese

[Forehead]

I'm big on the 'go **** yourself, Israel' bandwagon....we give them far too much stuff to be treated the way we are in return. Its nice to have an ally in the Middle East, but please...I'm sure we could probably build up another relationship with a country that wont **** on the hand that feeds them.

It's not like we need them for military bases, Saudi Arabia is right there. I suppose they're useful from an intelligence community standpoint, but I think they can be made compliant on that front just from the threat of leaving them on their own, so to speak.

[Bang]

With freinds like Israel,, who the **** needs any enemies.

**** the spy, and **** them too.

I'm about out of patience with Israel. Our feeding hand has so many damn bites on it there's hardly any room left for new teethmarks.

I say cut them off. Cold.

See how they like that.

~Bang

[The Brave Little Toaster Oven]

It's not like we need them for military bases, Saudi Arabia is right there. I suppose they're useful from an intelligence community standpoint, but I think they can be made compliant on that front just from the threat of leaving them on their own, so to speak.

Exactly...Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait,and Iraq are all right there...

I wonder how many problems we have with relations in the Middle East that would go away if we wiped our hands clean with Israel? I would guess a good majority, but all the extremists would find another reason to ***** and complain about us.

[jpyaks3]

Great, then why don't we stop giving them so much aid each year if they can handle themselves? Hell, we need to fix our debt issue, don't we? I don't know how much we give them; amounts vary depending on what web site you look at. One site said about 7 million per day, which is over 2.5 billion dollars per year.

And let's be honest, if the word got out that we were no longer supporting Israel, that we would give them no money, no weapons, nothing, don't you think Hamas and the other groups would be salivating?

Hamas would be salivating because it would force Israel to negotiate in good faith instead of torpedoing the peace process so they can continue to expand settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel might even *gasp* have to make a concession or two in negotiations.

[JMS]

I rarely get involved in political discussions because it's not something I follow, nor do I claim any expertise. However, just a few quick things I'm turning in my head here, maybe someone can answer them.

1. This Israeli agent stole a bunch of US government secrets and turned them over to Israel...and somehow the Soviets got their hands on some of it.

The belief is Israel traded top secret US documents to the soviet Union in exchange for Jewish immigrants being allowed to leave Russia and go to Israel. I've also seen it claimed the exchange occured for specific Russian Jews who worked on sensitive Soviet missile technology being able to immigrate. I've also heard it claimed that the Israeli intelligence was compromised by the soviets and that's how the soviets got the information. The exact mechanism thus remains unclear.

What we do know is Israel's jewish population increased by about 20% in the 1980's solely based upon Russian immigration. This is a big deal because it put off the existential crisis that is happenning today. In the 1980's Jews were on the verge of becoming a minority within the territory Israel controlled. The massive russian immigration was an important strategy to postpone this event for decades, and it worked. Jews becoming a minority in the state of Israel is a major systemic threat to the nation and it's role as a homeland for Jews.

Among the things which Pollard stole which ended up on Soviet hands were:

• Technology which allowed the United States to make our Nuclear Subs quiet. Before Pollard it was not uncommon for US nuclear attack boats to wait outside of Russian submarine bases and shaddow russian boombers(missile subs) throughout their entire patrols for months. All without the Soviets knowledge. Pollard gave the Israeli's the ship logs for these patrols which not only detailed how we were doing it, but also gave the soviets the confirming details of where their boats were going.
  
• NATO defense plans for Europe, including rallying zones and our staging locations where our re-inforcement troops would land in the event of a russian invasion, supply depots, and which units would be involved and at what strength..
  
• The Electronic signals bible(Among the most damaging was). How we use electromagnatic signals to conduct survalence. Certain Soviet equipment gives off certain electro magnetic signals and we were able to bounce different beams and listen to certain traffic and get comprehensive pictures of what we were facing. The loss of this bible allowed countries including Israel to mislead us and trick out what was our most productive intelligence gathering techniue for a decade.
  
• Raw intelligence reports from human assets across the middle east. The charge here is Israeli Intelligence reverse engineered who our human assets were and were able to flip or subvert many of them. This effectively killed our human intelligence capability on the eve of the first gulf war and blinded us to the second most productive intelligence gathering technique across the middle east.
  

2. In the Chinese fighter jet thread, didn't someone say that we poured a ton of money into that project and then Israel turned around and sold it to the Chinese?

Yep the United States spent more than a billion dollars for Israel to develop the Lavi jet fighter plane. The goal was in the late 70's and mid 1980's to sponsor the development of Israeli only military equipment. This would both make Israel more self sufficient from the US. but also ease tension between Israel and the US due to Israel's proclivity of selling US technology abroad. Israel's has a fine military and many countries take note of this. Israeli military equipement is among the most sought after in the world. The problem was much of Israeli's military equipment is based upon or is solely American technology. Israel builds a patrol boat which they want to sell, but they can't because the sophisticated engine and radar are American components which they can't re-export. That kind of thing.

And yes the Israeli's took our money, built the Lavi and sold it along with the plans and manufacturing rights to Red China. At the time this single trade jumped the chinese airforce two decades of sophistication. Taking them from a 1950's era airforce to a 1970's airforce; in the late 1980's when it occured. And yes the new Chinese Stealth Airplance the J-20 seems to be based largely on the Israeli Lavi (J-10) along with our own F-22 raptor; another plane the Israeli's have had access too.

Under payback is hell heading. I recently noted that China was selling the Israeli designed J-10 to Iran. If Israel does have a dispute with Iran they will likely be facing some of their own equipment; along with some of ours.

Israel has also sold the Chinese our AWACs technology. and Israel's sphisticated unmanned drone technology. Both of which caused a huge backlash in the US at the time. The US Congress took the unprecidented action to pass a bill to threaten to withhold the sale price Israel was expecting from our yearly aid, If Israel followed through delivered the AWACs planes they had sold to China. Israel ended up delaying their delivery of these planes until after the United States eye was focused elsewhere. The Drone technology was similar. Israel and the US had a writen legal agreement baring this technology from being exported to China. American intelligence determined during the Bush administration that China had obtained the technology in question. High ranking Israeli defense personel were then bared from visiting the Pentigon for more than a year in retaliation for the clandestined sale. Another crisis occured when China sent the drones back to Israel to be technologically refreshed. We threw a hissy fit over that one too.

http://militarynuts.com/ar/t238.htm

3. We give Israel how much in aid each year?

3 billion in 2010 I believe. But to get a real scope of our aid you would need to map our aid against Israeli wars. Traditionally when Israel fights a war; US aid goes up by:

• +250%(1979)
  
• +400%(1968)
  
• +500%(1974),
  
• +600%(1971)
  

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/U.S._Assistance_to_Israel1.html

We pay for their wars, offsetting what would be crippling financial burdons for such a small country. We are a good friend to have indeed.

Then of coarse there are the peace agreements. Every time Israel signs a peace deal. The United States steps up to the plate with tens of billions of dollars as sweeteners. We funded the Egyptian Israeli peace deal in such a mannor, committing the United States not only to massive one time payments; but also to match US funds given to Israel with aid for Egypt which means we've also given Egypt about 3 billion a year since the mid 1970's on behalf of Israel.

Israel also got payments from the United States not counted as aid for her peace deal with Jordan, and her withdrawl from Gaza, and her withdrawl from southern Lebenon.

I know there are more examples than those first two, but they're the ones I've seen discussed recently. Exactly when did a country approximately the size of New Jersey get to suddenly decide when to do this ****; to dictate things to us? Exactly whose side are they on? I've generally been pro-Israel since I don't want to see an entire country "stamped out of existence" as Hamas and other groups would prefer, but each time I read another one of these stories, I get a little more pissed off.

Israel is smaller than new jersy population wise. Israel is about 7 million people, New Jersey is about 9 million. I don't think Israel is trying to dictate anything to us. I think Israel is acting in her own best interests which often times coinside with ours. But not always.

If we cut Israel off completely, they're screwed. I know they have a ton of weapons, and much better ones than the Palestinians, but they've got them mostly because of us. How long would they last if we gave them the big middle finger and told them they were on their own. Ammunition only lasts so long, and the Palestinians have a lot more people. Sometimes, I think we ought to at least threaten them a little with the possibility of abandoning them, just to see how quickly their balls shrivel up.

I don't know about completely screwed. Israel did alright by itself before it recieved massive American aid. Israel would be less secure however. Our position is a secure Israel makes Israel more likely and more willing to negotiate. But I do agree with you; we are actively funding Israel; that gives us an active and idealy vocal role in what's going on there.